The Foreign Service Journal, November 2022

THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL | NOVEMBER 2022 27 sanctions? Is it another element of deterrence? What are the real reactions you can have, especially in something that doesn’t essentially rise to the level of an act of war? It’s really complicated, and we’re trying to create a conver- sation with our partners, friends, and allies: [What happens] beyond attribution, what’s next? I don’t have the answer to that, which is what I say to everybody, including our friends, partners, and allies. We have to work together to find the answer. We, the United States, can bring the group together. But if we try to just impose an answer, I think we’re not going to be as successful. AFSA: How will this new bureau, this new coordination, affect the Foreign Service workforce in terms of positions, hir- ing, training, and budget and staffing? JB: We’re trying to make sure we have a balance between the Foreign Service and Civil Service in the bureau, to have leader- ship positions as well as entry-level and mid-level positions for the Foreign Service. We advertised the deputy assistant secretary (DAS)-level position that’s responsible for the economics team. We will do the same on the security team, and we did it for the digital free- dom unit, as well. We are looking at Foreign Service officers, as well as Civil Service and Schedule Cs for those positions. Once we look across the broad range of applicants, we will select the best person for the job. I think just having a transparent process in which the Foreign Service can compete is a huge leap forward. We had somebody on a Y tour here who’s in the Information Management specialty. She was a great addition to the office. You have to cast the widest net possible for who can bring the skill sets you need in order to do the job. You have a pre–Foreign Service IT background. I want to know about it. You worked in gaming, ven- ture capital, et cetera, those are all super interesting backgrounds that we need to better leverage within the Foreign Service. For people in the field, we have this amazing cybersecurity toolkit that our staff created. If you’re serving overseas and you want to figure out how to work on cybersecurity and you haven’t had a lot of training and it’s one of 10 things in your portfolio, what do you do? So we created a toolkit that’s very practical and user friendly. We’re trying to elevate it and make sure that officers touching on these issues are aware of it. We’re providing toolkits and information. We have [Microsoft] Teams chats and listservs and all these ways to try to connect people and provide them the training they need. We’re also look- ing into the future as we build up the bureau, to have regional trainings, to bring people together from the Europe region or the Africa region. Again, these are things that will take some time because of our staffing. [Note: Nate Fick was confirmed September 15 to the newly created position of Ambassador at Large for Cyberspace and Digital Policy.] AFSA: How do I apply to work in your bureau? Is there a way to reach out to your team or your bureau to learn more about these efforts? JB: There’s a SharePoint site that we are attempting to keep updated with announcements. The creation of the bureau is like starting up the crank, right? The crank turns a little slower than maybe we would like, but we are getting jobs classified, and we should be getting more and more jobs posted on FS Bid. There are some Foreign Service jobs in the digital freedom unit that are “now” jobs, and there are Foreign Service jobs in the strategic planning and communications office that are “now” vacancies. We’ve brought in a number of Y tours, as well—people who are providing targeted support as we get the bureau up and run- ning. We have somebody working on change management. We have “now” vacancies, and we’ll have vacancies for sum- mer 2023. And it will just go on from there. For students, we are looking at Presidential Management Fellow rotations, and we are looking at interns. We’re looking at every hiring mechanism you can imagine, because we need to hire about 40 to 50 people eventually. We are putting positions on USAJobs, particularly at the GS-14 and -15 level to provide the opportunity for people in the Civil Service to move up. If you name a hiring mechanism, we’re probably trying to use it. If there’s something you’re interested in and it’s not posted today, please come back around and look again because it might be there in the future. If you’re Foreign Service, you should let us know if you’re bidding on one of the jobs that shows up as CDP consultative staffing. n A challenge we face is that we have less legislation in the United States on cyber and digital issues than Europe has.